


how fragile this is

by Hymn



Series: just words - a shance soulmate au [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Missing Scenes, Sexy Times, Soulmate AU, break up fic, not that lance is physically present lol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 14:02:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17602712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hymn/pseuds/Hymn
Summary: I just want to be happy, Shiro thought, incredulous and aching.Why is that so fucking hard?--or, a just words side story, featuring the end of Shiro and Richard's relationship





	how fragile this is

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zacekova](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zacekova/gifts).



> hey-o, i got a comment reminding me this exists, and while i'm not quite in a place where i can pick the whole thing back up again in a timely fashion, i _have_ been sitting on a fair amount of it, and figured i could at least start posting in the hopes of getting to it sooner than later. sorry sorry
> 
> this is the story of how richard and shiro's relationship ends, as well as some other stuff. you don't have to read it to read just words, i think, but you probably should. this starts at the end of chapter two, immediately after Inaaya notices the writing on Shiro's hand. good luck! 
> 
> also, this side story belongs to zacekova whether she wants it or not, because it is entirely her fault that richard started taking up so much space in my head. thanks my dear, <3

* * *

just words; a side story

how fragile this is

* * *

When he got to his room his hands were shaking. Honestly, Shiro was glad of that; it made it difficult to focus on the strange writing on his skin, the -- the _marks_ , unwelcome and horrible, that had been inflicted upon him without permission. Shiro knew the hand of his soulmate, now -- spider thin, rounded too far on the curves, uncertain. 

_Childish_.

Shiro felt the familiar sickness swoop low and lethal in his belly; felt it like a wound, a killing blow. Couldn’t help but rub his thumb wearily at the sweat-smeared ink; his own palm was dry, cool, and the lettering remained entirely unchanged, which --

Of course it did. 

Shiro had no control, here. He was a victim, branded and without hope for escape. 

_Now_ he started to sweat; felt it clammy at the skin of his neck, gumming up along the creases in his palm, like a river flowing sluggish and fouled along the banks of his lifeline. Hot, prickling, _miserable_. He didn’t want this, he didn’t -- he just wanted his _boyfriend_. Wanted to feel Richard’s arms around him, a safety net to keep him from drifting, from losing himself.

 _I just want to be happy_ , Shiro thought, incredulous and aching. _Why is that so fucking hard?_

“Dude,” said Mike, groggy with sleep on his bed. “Are you just going to stand there? Turn the lights off. Or something. I _hate_ Lit. Gonna delete this stupid book.”

Shiro jerked out of his spinning thoughts -- a momentary respite, but one he grasped hold of, desperate -- to see his roommate sprawled on the far bed, a tablet balancing precariously on his forehead and nose. He was still dressed in his uniform, looking completely unready for bed, which was weird, except that this was… normal.

It was _normal_ , the stuff of every day. Mike fell asleep fully dressed in the midst of his homework all the time. No matter what was written on Shiro’s hand, around him life continued without pause.

The world wasn’t ending, not yet.

“Sure,” Shiro said, and flicked the switch. The room went dark, and Shiro stood there, hesitant, trying to deal with the steadiness of the ground beneath his feet. 

Nothing had changed. Not really. Shiro had the same soulmate he’d had for the last decade, and he’d dealt with it so far -- even the tiger stripes and the whales -- and this _changed nothing_. Everything was fine, would be fine, it _would_. Shiro just -- 

He had to --

Hissing out a breath, Shiro leaned back against the closed door and fumbled his phone out of his pocket. | _i miss you_ | he sent, and then closed his eyes and tried not to hold his breath, waiting. 

Three hours later Richard sent back | _i love you, starkid_ | but Shiro was already asleep, lost in nightmares.

* * *

Two days after his private breakdown about the chicken scratch on his palm, Shiro needed to talk about it, somehow. So he went to Isaac, down the hall and not alone in his room. But it was just Kareem with his headphones on bobbing his head at his desk, back turned to the world while he pecked at his keyboard and slowly filled up his screen with -- Shiro squinted, curious despite himself -- an essay on FTL theories.

“I do not envy the engineering track,” Shiro decided, flopping onto the end of Isaac’s bed and shoving at Isaac’s feet so he could spread out. 

Isaac made a dismissive noise, ignoring him. A toe stabbed Shiro in the neck, and Shiro trapped it beneath his elbow, contorting himself into a vaguely uncomfortable shape to make a point. “What do you want, Shirogane?” Isaac finally groaned, sounding underappreciated and burdened by Shiro’s attention, so Shiro released his ankle to let Isaac pull his feet up.

Of course, Isaac shoved his whole foot into Shiro’s face instead, leaving him sputtering and flailing, and choking out, “When did you last wash your _socks_ , Miller?”

“Hell if I know,” Isaac said, and finally pulled his feet away. 

Shiro rubbed at his face, grimacing. “You’re disgusting,” he told Isaac, who snorted, and went back to his magazine. After a minute of soothing quiet, in which Shiro lifted both hands above his head and carefully inspected his palms -- marked with only creases and calluses, for now -- Shiro finally asked, “Do you really not believe in soulmates?”

Plumped up on his pillows, Isaac sighed. “Is this about Montgomery?”

It was, and it wasn’t. Shiro wished he could have a relationship that wasn’t affected by outside sources. That wasn’t complicated by Shiro’s very existence and the way the world worked, but this was his life and he had a soulmate and he just wanted to be good enough. To be good enough for Richard, and the life that Shiro wanted to share with him.

“Maybe,” he said, voice quiet.

Isaac scoffed, sounding half-distracted. Shiro appreciated it -- he didn’t need anyone peering too closely at his issues and why they might exist, after all -- even while he wished he could just shake him, tell him to take this as seriously as Shiro did because it fucking _mattered_. 

“You know I don’t. Not like -- not all that romance garbage. All that _there’s only one person for you_ bullshit. Like people are only worth anything in terms of relationships and sex.” Isaac sneered, a little, and Shiro turned his head, cheek against the scratchy wool of Isaac’s neatly folded blanket, and marveled at the lack of expression on Isaac’s face, despite his complete sincerity. “People are just meant to be… people. And whatever happens, happens. Or doesn’t.”

“How’s Josie?”

Isaac gave him a steady look over the top of the glossy magazine, before sighing. His eyes flicked back down to the article -- probably about the GX500 Andromeda; he was saving up to buy his own ‘bike and had his heart set on the new model. “Having some trouble. Apparently the new girlfriend has decided three months is plenty of time to be _considerate_. Now she’s expecting sex and not listening to reason. I told Josie to punch her and leave her, but she won’t listen to her little brother, apparently.”

“She knows Josie’s sex-repulsed, though,” Shiro said, frowning. “Josie’s not shy about that -- she’s always upfront about expectations.”

“And how often has it helped her out in a relationship?” Isaac’s fingers tightened, minutely, crinkling the pages. “Fucking asshats always trying to put pressure on her -- like she can change who she is just because they _want_ her to.”

Shiro swallowed. Said, “Sorry.”

“You can shove your apology up your ass,” Isaac said, voice mild. Shiro saw him relax, though, and he added without additional prompting, “In any case -- nothing is that neat and tidy, Shirogane. Soulmates don’t exist. There isn’t some higher being picking and choosing. There’s no fate. There just a mess of people and constantly changing choices and a whole bunch of bullshit until we die.”

“ _Morbid_ ,” Shiro protested, charmed despite himself. “Then what about the -- the writing? It’s documented. Soulmates do exist. They --”

“Yeah, sure. ‘Cause the government hasn’t ever lied to us about anything before.”

“Then what,” Shiro asked, “the fuck does it _mean_?”

“ _Language_ , Shirogane. Do you kiss your boyfriend with that mouth? I dunno, man. Who’s to say if it’s not some weird genetic thing that allows cross-dimensional communication? Why does it have to be _sexual_ and _romantic_?” Isaac flipped a page, voice steady. “Soulmates don’t exist. Whatever it is, it’s not that. People can remarry, find happiness; love someone so much they’re practically crazy with it and it can still be a bad relationship, no matter how well they fit. Honestly, I bet it’s just some fucking experiment -- some random ass anthropology case study on a global scale, it --”

Shiro snorted with sudden laughter. “ _What_. For, oh, hundreds of years? Yeah, sure, that seems likely. God, I never knew what a conspiracy nut you were.”

“Don’t mock it, Shirogane,” Isaac said, near-solemn. “It’s not the worst thing I could imagine happening. This world is pretty fucked up, you know. People are the worst. Anyway, if you’re having trouble with Montgomery then _deal_ with it. Stop stressing out about soulmates as an escape from your _actual_ problems. Fight for it, jesus. You’ve been gone on this dude since I met you, I don’t want to see you just sit back and let it all fall apart.”

“I --”

“You’re a bit of a coward, sometimes,” Isaac said. “Now get the fuck off my bed and leave me alone.”

* * *

Well, at least Shiro knew he was doing a decent job at his lifelong deception. _Stop stressing out about soulmates as an escape from your_ actual _problems_. Right, absolutely. That was --

Shiro hesitated in the hallway, halfway between Isaac’s room and his own, startled. Because that was -- that was _right_ , actually. That was entirely accurate. Shiro had a soulmate but he had already decided that it didn’t matter, hadn’t he? Because Shiro was his own person, with his own life and heart and choices, and he wasn’t going to be dictated by some unknown possibility, by societal expectations.

 _Fuck_ soulmates.

* * *

Of course, it wasn’t that easy. Nothing was, not when it was important and worthwhile, and maybe that was another point against the concept of _soulmates_. There had to be a reason why the whole world made such a big deal out of it -- couldn’t leave well enough alone; had to make it _complicated_ , and messy -- because that was the real world, real love.

With spring coming in fast basketball practice became longer and even more grueling, and what time Shiro had left was taken up by his advanced classes -- papers and problem sets and readings and oral examinations and extra time in the flight simulators whenever he could squeeze it in -- and the end result was that nothing changed. Richard and Shiro met up here and there throughout the week; an afternoon on Saturdays, sometimes, or a quick hello in the library, strained smiles and stilted conversation and a hesitant holding of hands before it was back to the grind, back to life and its impossible, sweeping current, carrying them along.

But when February hit without pause and all Shiro got for Valentine’s Day was a headache and a B- on his pop quiz in Physics 202, Shiro decided he had to figure out a way to stand firm. 

_Fight for it_ , Isaac had said. 

Shiro had thought that he was, that all this time he had fought for it -- refusing to give up, to listen to the dark and frightened thoughts that told him he wasn’t good enough to have this; stubbornly holding on to Richard and hope for a possible future that wasn’t preordained. But he hadn’t been. It wasn’t enough just to _choose_. He had to put in more effort than that.

He had to _push_. He had to _try_ , even if the possibility of failure was terrifying.

* * *

| _this isn’t doll anymore, Richard_ | he sent, and then cursed violently and hunched around his phone and added, | _cool* i hate autocorrect so much omg_ |

| _you are actually adorable_ | he got back a moment later, his phone pinging with Richard’s special text alert.

| _i’m serious! i didn’t even get to see you on valentine’s day_ |

He didn’t get a reply to that for four minutes, and after staring between the waiting screen and the slowly changing clock at the top of it, Shiro bit back an unhappy growl. | _i’m getting lunch_ | he finally sent, heart pounding. | _and if you don’t want to SERIOUSLY piss me off then you’d better come join me_ | Then he fumbled the phone, hands shaking; shoved it into his pocket and hurried across the courtyard, heading for the commissary. 

He listened for the text alert, but it didn’t come. He went blindly to the shortest lunch line, waiting, but told himself he couldn’t hear the alert over the chatter of the other cadets in the dining hall. He bought his food without registering what he selected, and sat at a table off by the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out onto the courtyard and ate without tasting anything, his phone quiet in his pocket. Shiro was afraid to look. 

When he only had an apple left, Shiro forced himself to pull his phone out, thumb it on, and see --

| _study group until 1300 hours, starkid. what are you wearing?_ |

Shiro choked on his bite of apple.

| _excuse you_ |

| _babe_ | sent Richard | _i hate study groups you gotta give me something or i’m just gonna expire of boredom and misery_ | and then, quickly, | _i wish i was with you. i’m sorry about vday you know why i couldn’t make it_ |

| _because iverson’s an ass_ | Shiro agreed, and then he realized that he was relaxed -- the painful tension in his shoulders releasing, his spine curving, his elbows on the table while he bit into his apple and half-smiled at his phone. This felt nice. Even with everything going on they’d at least always been able to do this -- banter back and forth via text like nothing was wrong, for as long as they had the time to spare before their attention was inevitably pulled away.

| _soooo what are you wearing_ |

Shiro grinned, and ducked his head to hide it from any passerby. | _what do you want me to be wearing?_ |

Then he finished his apple slowly. But there was no response by the time he finished, and he sighed before tucking his phone back into his pocket, gathering up his book bag. Slinging it across his shoulder, Shiro tossed his trash and put away the tray, trying not to be disappointed at the long silence he was receiving but unable to stop himself from moving slowly, taking his time, lingering, like that might make some kind of difference. 

Study group, Shiro reminded himself. People surrounding his boyfriend, demanding his attention. Work to be done, lessons to be memorized. There was a time and a place for everything, and sometimes even sexting had to be put on hold, surely, even when it had been nearly two weeks since the last time Shiro had gotten more than a half-distracted make out session and --

A breeze brushed against him; it wasn’t cold, but it wasn’t warm, and Shiro shivered to feel it. The trees groaned, mostly bare this early in the year, and Shiro looked up at them and the way they cut across the pale blue sky beyond, making constantly shifting shapes, never quite willing to settle. 

( _\-- fight for it --_ )

Shiro pulled out his phone, checked the time, and sent | _my room at 1330 or there will be dire consequences Montgomery_ |

Forty minutes later his phone finally dinged with the alert that made his heart skip a beat, every time.

| _sir, yes, sir!_ |

* * *

“Hello, Commander,” Richard grinned, leaning against the wall outside of Shiro’s door. He looked tired; shadows beneath his eyes, skin thin and paler than usual; even his hair seemed limp. But still, he waggled his eyebrows suggestively even as Shiro rolled his eyes and stepped aside, letting him in. “Reporting, as ordered. What do you -- whoa!”

Shiro had him up against the door, nearly nose to nose. 

He knew what he wanted to say -- what he had to say, maybe. He had practiced in front of the mirror on the back of the door, the very same one that Richard was leaning back against that very moment, shifting so that the frame didn’t dig quite so annoyingly into his shoulder. _We need to talk_ , Shiro would say, _because I deserve better than this and I refuse to let you give up on us_.

“Don’t leave me,” he blurted out, uselessly.

Richard blinked, eyes wide. And then his whole face softened. Shiro had jerked back a few inches in embarrassment at his outburst, face flaming, so he could see the transformation. It looked kind of painful, or maybe that was just the way Shiro’s heart felt, twisting at the sight of such open tenderness. 

“Hey,” Richard murmured, and his fingers slipped over Shiro’s hips. “I -- Shiro, you don’t -- you don’t have to worry about that, you know? I love you.”

Shiro breathed unsteadily, watching him.

“Don’t -- _God_ , Shirogane, your eyes should be illegal. Do you have any idea how weak I am to you? C’mere.”

Hands drew him closer, tugging. Shiro let them, not understanding why he was hesitating except for maybe because of how much he _wanted_ this. Was desperate to fix it, to make it work and succeed, to have what he wanted and be _certain_ of it. Richard tipped his forehead against his; they were of a height, now, and Shiro just breathed for a moment, feeling Richard breathe with him.

“I do love you,” Richard whispered, eyes closing. “I think that -- I think I get scared of that, sometimes. How much I love you and how much it’s going to hurt when you leave me.”

“ _What_ \--”

Richard shook his head; a minute shake that Shiro felt as a pressure against his forehead. His own hands were tight on Richard’s shoulders, now, and Richard was distracted and tense enough that he was holding Shiro’s hips hard enough to bruise; painful, but grounding. A mark on Shiro’s skin that he would actually welcome, for once.

“I’m allowed my fears,” Richard said. “Don’t -- Don’t worry about it, all right? C’mon, just let me love you, okay?”

“You haven’t been doing a very good job of it, lately.” 

“True.” 

That was all he said -- no actual apology -- but the thing was that Richard sounded like he regretted it, and -- _that’s enough_ , thought Shiro, heart fluttering. _You’re forgiven, you were always forgiven, it’s fine it’s fine it’s fine_. A tentative happiness -- an even more tentative feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction -- began to wind through him, dizzying. 

“I love you, too. But Valentine’s Day still sucked, even if it wasn’t your fault.” _This whole semester has sucked_ , he thought, privately, and even if Valentine’s Day hadn’t actually been Richard’s fault, a lot of the rest of it had been -- but he was happy to let it go. To release that frustration and move on, past it; to cling tight to this moment, instead. Shiro dared to ask, voice a low tease, “Are you going to make it up to me?” 

Richard grinned, and now his fingers were rubbing little circles against Shiro’s hips, edging down toward his butt, the touch light and teasing. “Thoroughly,” he promised. “And repeatedly. You gonna let me eat you out?”

“ _Hng_.” 

Shiro blinked rapidly and wanted -- desperately -- to say something more coherent. Something like _Oh, well, if you insist_ , or even, _fuck yes_ , would have been acceptable. He was entirely too turned on to manage it, though. By the time the blood stopped rushing quite so loudly in his ears and he might have been able to articulate his enthusiastic consent, Richard already had the door locked behind him and was tumbling Shiro onto the bed with bright, warm laughter.


End file.
